Entertainment
Modern Star Trek’s So Ugly It Makes The Writing Look Good
By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
When longtime fans complain about NuTrek, they usually focus on the writing, which is understandable; after all, you can only hear so much vulgarity-induced Zoomer slang before you ask why characters hundreds of years in the future all sound like today’s edgy teens and not, you know, competent Starfleet officers. However, the biggest problem facing the franchise today has nothing to do with the writing or even acting.
The worst thing about modern Star Trek is that it has become relentlessly ugly. Despite spending over eight million dollars per episode, the uniforms, ships, and outer space visual effects are the worst in over 60 years of franchise history. If you doubt that, don’t worry: like a good Ferengi, I’ve got all the receipts!
Credit Where Credit Is Due
Let’s start with the uniforms, and in the spirit of fairness, let’s start with what has actually worked well. The uniforms in Strange New Worlds look great, though that was always a given; one of the goals of the show was always to update and modernize the aesthetic of Star Trek: The Original Series. That earlier show’s ‘60s uniforms are still absolutely iconic, and SNW simply updated their look, giving us something akin to the Kelvinverse: a slick redesign of the most timeless uniforms in the entire franchise.
This may be a hot take, but I actually really liked the uniforms in the first two seasons of Star Trek: Discovery. They felt like sleek, modern versions of the blue Away Team jackets worn by Captain Pike and Spock in the first Star Trek: The Original Series pilot episode.
Plus, they fit into existing lore better than most fans think: there have been weird uniform variations in this franchise from the beginning (like different insignias for different ships and variant uniforms for different specialties), and the Golden Age of Trek constantly featured characters using different styles of uniforms (like the mix of TNG and DS9 designs in Generations).
Throw in the fact that the Discovery was an experimental ship seemingly backed by Section 31, and these characters getting snazzy blue uniforms makes perfect sense. However, the crew ditched this killer look once they jumped to the 32nd century. Instead, they embraced brand new uniforms that just had one major problem: they were downright ugly, beginning a decline in Star Trek aesthetics that continues to this day.
It’s About To Get Ugly
In Season 3 of Star Trek: Discovery, our favorite characters get new uniforms that feel like a serious downgrade: those beautiful blue costumes get replaced with soulless gray uniforms whose dreariness is only broken up by a colorful division stripe. The characters looked blander than ever, and it didn’t help that this season’s storytelling was a serious downgrade from Season 2. Adding insult to injury, these drab uniforms looked way too much like what Kirk and crew wore in Star Trek: The Motion Picture, and that movie’s pastel pajamas are widely considered some of the worst uniform designs in the franchise.
Star Trek: Discovery Season 4 tried to correct this terrible design, replacing the blandness of the previous season with uniforms that were bold and colorful. That’s a good idea on paper, but in practice, the new uniform designs looked like what you’d get if you ordered Original Series costumes from Temu.
It’s hard to take any of these characters seriously when the open flap on the bottom of their tunics makes them look like a white-collar boss who felt wild enough to untuck his shirt and unbutton the bottom buttons to celebrate Casual Friday in style.
No, Captain, My Captain
The next Star Trek fashion fail is partially the fault of arguably the most popular living Star Trek actor: Patrick Stewart. When Paramount lured him back for Picard, he was insistent that he didn’t want to wear a Starfleet uniform, which is why his character and his Season 1 crew run around in dark outfits that Stewart might as well have stolen from the set of David Lynch’s Dune. This is a big part of why the first and second seasons are so painful to watch: on top of writing so bad it makes Nemesis look like a masterpiece, the costume design for our series regulars is lazy and completely phoned-in.
The Starfleet uniforms were a bit better than Picard’s crew, but not by much: they alternated between looking like updated TNG Academy uniforms to uniforms that looked like plainer takes on the ones worn in Lower Decks. By Season 3, everyone was just wearing leather jackets with some light Star Trek theming on them.
This caused our returning TNG crew to look (embarrassingly enough) like bikers from an AARP-themed motorcycle club. It was like the producers were deathly afraid for this to look or feel like an actual Star Trek show, which is insane for a wildly expensive revival of the show that definitively brought the franchise back to life.
These Students Failed Fashion 101
The latest offender on the Star Trek fashion front is Starfleet Academy, a show that can’t decide exactly what it wants its protagonists to look like. Sometimes, instructors like Jet Reno wear uniforms that look like colorful hourglasses slapped haphazardly on a large expanse of black fabric.
The Doctor is wearing something akin to a monochrome version of his Voyager outfit, and Holly Hunter’s chancellor is wearing something like a monster maroon tunic without any of the flair. Over at the War College, Commander Nelrec is wearing something that looks like somebody tried to draw the Battlestar Galactica reboot duty blues from memory after being hit on the head.
Incredibly, the cadet uniforms are even more stylistically scattered: they mostly wander the campus in drab grey uniforms that look like an even worse version of what everyone wore in Star Trek: Discovery Season 3. Sometimes, though, they unzip that to wear just tight red shirts and black pants (which they adorn with futuristic tactical vests for rousing games of laser tag). Speaking of laser tag, after winning a single game against the War College, they wear letterman jackets, which leaves me wondering if anyone on the writing staff actually played sports in school.
None of these designs is great (minus the inexplicably comfy-looking Starfleet Academy hoodie), and several are downright ugly. That ugliness is made worse by the sheer visual chaos of characters that have more wardrobe changes per episode than most cosplayers do all year. This is symbolic of Starfleet Academy’s biggest problem as a show: it’s trying to be too many different things all at once, ultimately losing its own identity in a frantic rush to please fans of every era.
Clothing Maketh The Spaceman
Believe it or not, this barely scratches the surface of what makes NuTrek so ugly. I haven’t gotten around to forgettable ship designs (quick, draw the Starfleet Academy teaching ship from memory, I dare you!) and lazy outer space effects that make battles increasingly hard to follow. Those battles alternate between being visually boring (like the Battle of the Binary Stars in Discovery) to pathetically lazy (like Riker threatening the Romulans in Picard with an entire fleet of copy/paste ships). After spending more than $8 million per episode, NuTrek gives us space battles with less variety and excitement than Deep Space Nine did in the ‘90s.
The biggest issue is still the clothing, which has just gotten worse since Discovery first aired nearly a decade ago. Star Trek is a franchise with over half a century of cool clothing designs, and The Next Generation is proof that Paramount once knew how to update the designs that made The Original Series into a pop culture phenomenon. If the creators behind NuTrek are completely incapable of making these shows look decent, they will have nobody but themselves to blame when audiences stop watching altogether.
Entertainment
Who is the Super Bowls Black national anthem singer Coco Jones?
“Lift Every Voice and Sing,” also known as the Black national anthem, has been sung at every Super Bowl since 2021, when Alicia Keys performed the song.
This year, at Super Bowl LX, Coco Jones will perform “Lift Every Voice and Sing.”
So, who is Coco Jones?
Mashable Top Stories
Coco Jones is a Grammy Award-winning R&B artist. In 2024, she was nominated for 5 Grammys and won one award for Best R&B Performance for her platinum-certified song “ICU.” She earned two more Grammy nominations in 2025 and was nominated for Best R&B Album at this year’s award show.
The artist’s father, Mike Jones, is a former pro football player. Jones was an NFL linebacker who played for the New England Patriots, St. Louis Rams, and Tennessee Titans.
If you’re not familiar with Coco Jones as an R&B artist, she might look familiar to you if you watched the Peacock series Bel-Air. Jones is the actor who played Hillary Banks on the drama that reimagined the Will Smith sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. As a child actor, she was also a well-known Disney Channel star, appearing in So Random!, Good Luck Charlie, and the Disney Channel Original Movie Let It Shine.
Entertainment
Netflix's Perfect, Offbeat Documentary Is A Masterclass In Undetected Living
By Robert Scucci
| Published
With rent prices spiraling out of control, the average person has to figure out how to be thrifty enough to survive in this brutal economy if they want to maintain a comfortable quality of life. Personally, I freelance full time because it allows me to work from home and keep a flexible schedule. That lifestyle choice lets me stay home with my kids, saving a ton of money on child care. I’m also saving hand over fist on car maintenance and fuel costs because I don’t have a commute. In a past life, I remember dropping about 10 grand a year just getting to and from an office setting that made me miserable, so I don’t do that anymore, and my wallet thanks me for it.
Most importantly, I like staying home so I can actually enjoy what my rent pays for. I’ll stand in the vacant corner of the living room that we don’t quite know what to do with yet, simply because we’re paying for every single square inch and might as well use it. When my wife asks what I’m doing, I tell her I’m getting my money’s worth and enjoying my rent. While this behavior sounds a little silly, it’s nothing compared to what’s uncovered in the 2024 documentary, Secret Mall Apartment.
It’s Exactly What It Sounds like
If you’re wondering what Secret Mall Apartment is about, there’s no need to read between the lines. It’s about a collective of Rhode Island-based artists, led by Michael Townsend, who secretly lived inside the Providence Place shopping mall for four years without being discovered. What began as a creative solution to displacement ultimately became a long term, living art installation and a quiet protest against gentrification. Along the way, the documentary also makes a strong case for using art as a way to reclaim your life, which might be exactly the kind of inspiration you’re looking for right now.
It all started in 2003, when Michael Townsend and his friends Colin Bliss, Adrian Valdez Young, Andrew Oesch, Greta Scheing, James Mercer, Emily Ustach, and Jay Zehngebot needed a new base of operations after the dilapidated Eagle Square district, which functioned as a creative hub for local artists, was leveled to make way for the sprawling shopping center. Providence Place mall was never exactly welcomed by longtime residents, largely because it was seen as a development that would drive up costs and push lower income families out of the area.
While reluctantly wandering through the mall to see what all the hype was about, Townsend discovered a chunk of unutilized space where several structures intersected. That discovery sparked the idea to slowly transform it into a hidden apartment. With the help of his friends, they turned the space into a modest but functional living area of roughly 750 square feet. Using a Pentax Optio camera, they documented the entire process, from sneaking furniture into the space to tapping electricity from a nearby store. They even hauled in dozens of cinder blocks to construct their own wall and a locking door, all without drawing attention from security.
Technically Theft And Trespassing, But Also A Living Art Installment
Townsend was eventually discovered, cited for trespassing, and evicted from the secret mall apartment in 2007. Even so, it’s hard not to admire the initiative behind the whole thing. As the documentary makes clear, Townsend is the kind of person who sees art in everything, and transforming the space was simply another creative challenge. While living inside the mall, the group continued to work on ambitious projects under the radar, including contributing to an elaborate 9/11 memorial in New York City and creating large scale tape murals at children’s hospitals, more often than not working tirelessly for free.
Between these demanding projects, the group returned to their secret mall apartment to talk shop, plan their next ideas, and unwind by playing video games, watching TV, and simply having a place to exist without paying rent. The stunt itself is impressive, but it also functioned as a pointed commentary on gentrification. Providence Place was a massive development designed primarily for tourists rather than locals. After the construction of the 1.4 million square foot mall displaced a thriving underground art community, Townsend felt reclaiming 750 unused square feet was a fitting way to push back.
Secret Mall Apartment is a satisfying watch because the apartment represents more than just a clever place to live. It stands for reclaiming autonomy through unconventional means and tells a genuinely inspiring story about eight people who followed a strange idea because it felt like their calling at the time. Every person who lived in the secret mall apartment still works in the arts today. Meanwhile, the mall itself is currently under state receivership, which feels like an ironic footnote in a story about creativity outlasting corporate progress.
If you’re looking for a feel-good documentary that might spark something in your own creative life, or if you’re just looking for some thrifty interior decorating tips, you can stream Secret Mall Apartment on Netflix.
Entertainment
Odell Beckham Jr., Kane Brown, and More Stars Serve Up Fun at Cîroc Athletic Club's Pickleball Tournament
Game, set, sip! Odell Beckham Jr., Kane Brown, Terrell Owens, Estelle, and more celebs headed to Cîroc Athletic Club at M Ranch, a private estate established in 1919, in Napa Valley, California on Feb. 6 to debut its inaugural Super Bowl pickleball tournament.
Celebrity pickleball coach Matt Manasse, who has trained Jamie Foxx, Matthew McConaughey, Kelly Rowland, Will Ferrell, and Emma Watson, hosted the day’s matches, with Owens stepping onto the court to compete.
Between rallies, guests recharged with Leisure Well experiences, including IV drips and B12 shots from Recovery Suite and massages by Hyperice.
Throughout the day, attendees embraced wine-country living by sipping Cîroc vodka specialty cocktails, crafted from fine French grapes and distilled using a cold fermentation process, as they soaked in vineyard views across the property’s 12 acres.
Inside the home, partygoers browsed curated artwork by Gordon Parks, courtesy of Jenkins Johnson Gallery, before making their way to an outside stand to grab custom Cîroc pullovers, windbreakers, disposable cameras, and travel bags.
As golden hour faded into evening, DJ Millie kept the energy high with a live set, before guests enjoyed a performance by IDL and a dinner by Chef Kwame Onwuachi, followed by dessert and cupcakes to go.
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